1930: Folk Tales of All Nations

Here's a book published in 1930, thus entering the public domain on January 1 2026:

Folk Tales of All Nations
by F. H. Lee
Internet Archive

This absolutely enormous book, almost 1000 pages in length, is a truly comprehensive anthology of folktales and other traditional stories from around the world, and it really takes the global imperative seriously: there are 50 pages of African folktales, for example, which I was very glad to see, as African traditions are often not included in so-called "world" anthologies. And the Americas section is represented by Indigenous and African American stories! The overall organization is alphabetical, which is why Africa and the Americas come first; the book closes with Switzerland, Tibet, and Turkey.

Unlike many such anthologies, Lee is scrupulous about indicating his sources; see the introductory paragraph for each section of the source(s) used in that section.

Of course there are yet thousands and thousands more pages of folk tale texts in the public domain that can be used to create anthologies like this... but this book alone is quite monumental. Anyone who reads their way through it would have a great awareness of the world's storytelling traditions. I'll definitely be recording stories from here, and I'll also create a linked bibliography here so that if you want to find yet more stories from the sources that Lee used, you'll be able to do so here.

F. H. Lee is best known for his "children's versions" of literary classics, like The Children's Swiss Family Robinson, Children's Don Quixote, Children's Hiawatha, Children's Alice, Children's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and on and on.